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Dean’s Fellows Program Rewards the Best of the Best Entering Doctoral Students in the College of Engineering

Dean’s Fellows Program Rewards the Best of the Best Entering Doctoral Students in the College of Engineering

Ajibola Lawal

The College of Engineering is recognizing its 26 most accomplished, first-year, doctoral students with the distinction of Dean’s Fellows for 2018-19, a program which rewards entering Ph.D. students with financial support, academic acknowledgement, and career-making research opportunities. Since enrolling here last September, these diverse students have shown unlimited potential, as demonstrated by their impressive range of backgrounds.

“The Dean's Fellowships provide financial support for exceptional first-year Ph.D. students in the College of Engineering,” explains College of Engineering Associate Dean Russell Tessier of the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department. “The fellowships are jointly sponsored by the Graduate School and the College of Engineering. Each Fellow receives full financial support for the first two semesters of study, including one semester of fellowship support and one semester of teaching or research assistantship.”

Professor Tessier adds that “Fellows are identified as having great potential for doctoral research during the Ph.D. application process.”

Since enrolling in September of 2018, the Dean’s Fellows have demonstrated an exceptional record of achievement, as shown by their impressive research backgrounds in a brilliant, varied, and impressive array of fields.

For example, Dean’s Fellows in the Chemical Engineering Department are studying such timely issues as functional biomaterials for therapeutic or diagnostic applications, drug design and delivery, zeolite synthesis and its application in catalysis, and other equally dynamic research.

In the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, one new fellow worked for five years in the Indian National Institute of Ocean Technology to bring offshore wind energy to that country. Others research artificial intelligence in transportation asset management, water supplies in Mexico City, and additional crucial topics.

Dean’s Fellows in the ECE department are looking at hardware security and embedded systems, energy access in sustainable rural development for the developing world, and other notable subjects. One new ECE fellow even applies deep learning and computer vision techniques to satellite imagery for monitoring infrastructure systems in developing countries.

Fellows in the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department are scrutinizing the behavior of the typical aneurysmal wall in blood flow, floating wind turbines and airborne wind-energy devices, non-intrusive implantable devices used for bio-signal sensing and reacting with soft bio-friendly materials, and other vital projects.

Collectively, the Dean’s Fellows embody a dazzling array of talent. Among the countries represented by the new Dean’s Fellows are South Korea, China, India, Great Britain, Uganda, and the United States. (February 2019)